How to Keep Your Team on Track

When your business grows and it’s time to bring a team on board a common question we hear is “how do I keep everyone busy and on task?” especially from those entrepreneurs who are already stretched thin and don’t have hours upon hours to babysit other people.

It will take some adjustment but with a little organizing and our favorite software system you can easily track the work of 2 or 20 team members without spending a lot of time.

We’ve heard from entrepreneurs who say that their team “is useless” and doesn’t do any work who conveniently ignore the fact they haven’t assigned work in weeks!

Other times, even in my business, I forget that something was assigned and then frustrated that it hasn’t been completed putting me in a time crunch! If you want to make the most of your investments with you team you can’t just ignore them until something is due or shoot off a bunch of rambling emails and expect magic to happen.

Here are 4 broad strategies you can use to track your team’s tasks:

1. Go back to the job description – it all starts here! If you created the job description after watching the Day 3 video of my free hiring series you already have this in place.

Refer to the job description and try to get all of the distinct tasks on one list for each employee. Go ahead and cross off anything that you’re not ready to delegate and add any tasks that you want to.

We recommend talking through this list with the team member to ensure that you’re on the same page, as you’re doing that go ahead and note how often each task is completed.

2. Decide how you’re going to track – and don’t attempt to use a) your memory or b) sheets of paper. We’re in the 21st century and even if we don’t yet have flying cars we do have incredible technology so embrace it!

Our favorite is Asana and it enables work spaces for your team and clients as well as recurring tasks which are so helpful! It’s the best task management software we’ve found and it is free for teams up to 30 members.

3. Input the tasks and assign them with deadlines – it will do you no good to say “delete spam comments” if you don’t specify that you want it done more frequently that once a year. Remember that part of the reason you hired help in the first place was to make your life easier. But employees aren’t mind readers so you need to be specific and clear with your directions.

As I shared in this article for Forbes, systems like this make employee correction easier because it’s right there, in black and white, time stamped.

4. Review the progress. Technology and automation make take most of the work out of assigning and tracking tasks but you still have to be involved. Check in on tasks that haven’t been completed, make sure your team is asking questions when they get stuck, work together to get past problems and complete assignments on time.

How often you check in will depend on the employee, the task and your leadership style. Over time many owners can relax because the trust has been built up but you simply can’t abdicate this responsibility if you want your business to grow.